A lot of people are wondering why Nokia didn't choose to go with Android. How can Nokia differentiate themselves when Android is a lot more open and free than Windows Phone 7? As usual, the key to this is in the details. If you read the announcements carefully, you'll see that Microsoft offered Nokia something Google most likely didn't. Update: What a surprise. Elop just confirmed Nokia has a special deal with Microsoft. Whereas HTC, Samsung, and so on are not allowed to customise WP7 - Nokia is, further confirming my theory.

Meego was (well, now the second) dumbest mistake Nokia ever made. It added nothing generally to Maemo, except alot of rework for no value. May argue about the feasibility of Hildon/GTK but it's a strawman argument and irrelevant now anyway.

Weeks lost switching from debian to rpm, build server upgrades for months all to integrate with an existing netbook distribution. Utter waste of time, effort, and more importantly momentum. The n900 adaptation effort for meego couldn't even launch today for existing hardware let alone new platforms.

Should have completed Harmattan and announced the dual-core N9 in December when they planned and added Qt/QtMobility in staged releases along with Symbian^3.

Not difficult. Someone deserves to be fired, but becoming a Microsoft OEM is the end of Nokia. It will continue obviously in a decade-long slide. Then it's over. And even if it survives it is no longer the Nokia we have known and supported as a EU technology counterbalance to the US.

The market agrees, their stock price is down what 15% on their new strategic announcement? And Elop is worried about Nokia's credit rating? Going to be an interesting annual stockholders meeting to be certain. Some board members should be worried.